Ryanair details deliveries of new 737 fleet

Irish budget carrier Ryanair has detailed the five-year delivery schedule for its new batch of 175 Boeing 737-800s, with the first 11 scheduled to arrive by the end of March 2015.

Its fleet at the beginning of the current 2013-14 fiscal year stood at 305 of the type and this will drop to 290 when the 2014-15 year opens, as leased jets are returned and the carrier disposes of older ones.

The first 11 of the new order will then enter the fleet, while the carrier will respectively take 35, 50, 50 and 29 aircraft over the following four years.

Ryanair will also withdraw 105 other 737s giving it a net fleet of 375 by the end of March 2019.

At this point, Ryanair says in a newly-distributed shareholder document, it will have capacity to achieve annual passenger volumes of 100 million.

Under four previous Boeing contracts the airline has acquired 348 aircraft.

It says these were 66% financed by US Ex-Im Bank loan guarantees, with another 24% through sale and operating leaseback financing. The remaining 10% was achieved with Japanese operating leases with call options.

But changes introduced at the beginning of this year, says Ryanair, have "significantly increased" fees payable to Ex-Im Bank - making it "more expensive" than traditional forms of finance.

Ryanair says intends to finance the [737 purchase] through other means including internally-generated cash flows and debt financing from commercial banks and capital markets.

"These forms of financing are generally accepted in the aviation industry and are currently widely available for companies who have the credit quality of Ryanair," it adds. It gives the price of each aircraft as $81.3 million, but this excludes confidential discounts.

Ryanair owns 246 of its current aircraft and says it will dispose of 25-50 over the course of the order.